Fight the Facebook Ban on Dr. Peter Gray’s Article about School

Children’s Mental Health Crises Plummet in Summer and Rise in the School Year . . .

Children's Rights, Public School Issues, School reformPatrick FarengaAugust 24, 2015Dr. Peter Gray, Danger of Back to School, Children's Mental Health, Facebook ban Comments

Unschooling Increases Its Global Reach

Unschooling and self-directed learning are gaining advocates around the globe . . .

Europe, Learner-centered curricula, School reform, UnschoolingPatrick FarengaAugust 6, 2015unschooling, Edu on Tour, Learning Cultures 3.0, unschooling the worldComment

Escaping the Education Caste System

Some Indian parents help their children cheat on exams to get ahead, and treat children harshly to make them study, in what they perceive as a dog-eat-dog world of education. Is conventional schooling the only way to help people learn and grow into good citizens?

Homeschooling Current Issues, Learning and Teaching, Parenting, Public School Issues, School reformPatrick FarengaApril 2, 2015School cheating, Schooling the World, education caste, Standardized testingComment

An Unrelenting Focus on Education Mistakes Knowledge for Power

Striking comments and evidence from mainstream economists that increasing college graduation rates and getting better job training are diversions from the real work of finding work worth doing and getting paid fairly for it . . .

College, Jobs and Credentials, School reform, Technology and EducationPatrick FarengaMarch 6, 2015college not worth debt, Cost of College Degrees, employment, Social Change Comment

John Taylor Gatto Back in Business

John Taylor Gatto continues to improve from his stroke and has just revised his website . . .

Homeschooling Current Issues, Learner-centered curricula, Learning and Teaching, Public School Issues, School reformPatrick FarengaFebruary 10, 2015John Taylor Gatto, Dumbing Us Down, Underground History of American Education Comment

Manifesto 15

"In a world consumed with uncertainty and a growing sense of the obsolescence of our education systems, how can we ensure the success of ourselves as individuals, our communities, and the planet? We need to evolve education."—From Manifesto 15.

School reform, Parenting, Learning and Teaching, Learner-centered curricula, Children's RightsPatrick FarengaJanuary 30, 2015Manifesto 15, Schooling, School reformComment

John Taylor Gatto Update

John Gatto's website is temporarily down, but he's doing well . . .

Homeschooling Current Issues, Learning and Teaching, Public School Issues, School reformPatrick FarengaOctober 6, 2014John Taylor Gatto, Underground History of American Education Comment

The Protect Children Project

Empowering children to question authority and become active citizens rather than passive students is not high on the agendas of religious and educational institutions, since they consider physical and psychological punishments to be necessary components of their teaching processes. This is why I’m writing about the Protect Children Project—its primary purpose is to end corporal punishment in school—and they have declared May 15, 2014, as Protect Children Day.

Children's Rights, Legal Issues, Public School Issues, School reformPatrick FarengaApril 22, 2014protect children project, corporal punishment in school, Children's rights, child abuse Comments

Blaming Parents for Poor Schools

President Obama called for “more challenging curriculums and more demanding parents” in his state of the union address and the NY Times has followed this up with a debate on its pages, Blaming Parents for Poor Schools which, I think, encapsulate the issues of why schools are so resistant to change . . .

Homeschooling Current Issues, School reformPatrick FarengaFebruary 13, 2014Blaming Parents for poor schools, Compulsory Education, Parenting Comments

John Holt GWS